In the past, tracking changes in the volume of news articles regarding particular subjects required a significant investment of time by an analyst. The analyst would research publications related to the particular subject, such as a company or companies, and make a subjective assessment as to the importance of the articles discovered. However, manual tracking of information related to a subject is rather imprecise and time consuming. Any results obtained are contingent on the expertise of the individual analyst and may vary significantly over a period of time.